


Lost

by Breath4Soul



Series: Stayin' Alive: 30 Day Johnlock Challenge [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: 30 Days of Johnlock, 30 Days of Writing, First Kiss, Fluff, Kissing in the Rain, M/M, PTSD John, Prompt Fill, Sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-07
Updated: 2017-03-07
Packaged: 2018-09-30 16:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10167329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breath4Soul/pseuds/Breath4Soul
Summary: A chase through the woods at night triggers some dark memories for John. Sherlock helps him find his way back.Day 1 of A 30 Day challenge to keep my Johnlock love alive.Prompt: Getting Lost Somewhere





	

As the moon climbs over the unfamiliar woods, John's frustration rises. The gathering of heavy shadows, obstructing his vision, and the odd sounds of night creatures overlaying the sticks and leaves crackling underfoot makes a nervous energy collect in his chest. It bares down with the ominous weight of the dark clouds threatening overhead. It has been over an hour since the sun sank into the surrounding hills and John knows they are far from any civilization.

Give him a dark, London alley any day. There is an orderly chaos in the stark vertical and horizontal lines of buildings and bridges. A sense that nature has been wrangled into submission, trodden over and disciplined so that everywhere you turn it is clear that you are never far from another human. These woods are wild, twisted and untamed. Outside man's domain. It leaves John feeling unsettled in his skin. Unwelcome. 

The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as he chases the graceful form of Sherlock; a liquid shadow flowing through the forest ahead of him. He tries desperately not to lose him to the darkness that is constantly trying to fold the man into its fabric. His heart thumps in his ears and his lungs burn as he strains to keep that mad genius in sight. 

The detective zigzags, doubles back and loops around, oblivious to all but his singular focus of solving the case. His razor thin form slices through the brush, unmolested, while John fights every branch and thorny bush like a wild boar, haplessly rampaging through the undergrowth. John must scramble awkwardly over boulders that Sherlock takes in single, graceful bounds. He’s tired, sore, scraped and bruised. He wants to call out to Sherlock, command him to stop, urge him to head back, but he knows there is no point. The man is as keen as a bloodhound on the trail. John, as usual, is left to try his damnedest to not let his companion run off a cliff, get swallowed into a hole or to be attacked by murderers (or rodents of unusual size). A task that seems impossible when the woods keep holding him back.

He loses sight of Sherlock and has a second of panic before he crashes into a clearing where Sherlock is stopped, hands cast out slightly to his sides as he stares straight ahead. John doesn't know why Sherlock is frozen in place. He can't see if there is danger and the adrenaline and fear thrumming through him and burning in his chest, solidifies into action at the blinding flash of light. 

John's retinas burn as the world blazes around them and he leaps forward, crashing into Sherlock and hunching around him, expecting the explosion to rip through him. Instead, there is a sharp crack, then the deep, roll of thunder that shakes the earth beneath them and rumbles inside John's chest. They are plunged into darkness once more, but John's mind has snapped him back to another place and time.

His ears ring with the thunder and the remembered roar of carnage. The earth has stopped shaking, but he has not. The soldier's muscles are clenched, braced for the inevitable pain of shrapnel, bullets tearing through fragile flesh. 

“John,” a voice is close to his ear, too gentle for battle. _Fragile things don't survive._ John pushes down harder. He is shouting stern commands over the gunfire and the screaming of soldiers and civilians dying in agony all around… but he has _one._ He has saved _one._ Below his own body a life is kept safe. That's all that matters.

“Stay still, soldier. I've got you,” John curls his body in more as his hand scrambles for his gun. 

_Holster is gone._  
_Lost._ >  
_No way to fight.  
Sitting duck._

His blood is screaming through his veins. His head swivels from side to side seeking the source of the gunfire, seeking cover for extraction. There is only darkness and the spots swimming in his vision from the shock of light.

“John.” The voice next to his ear is sharper now, familiar and demanding. It is not afraid and… _it doesn't belong here_. John blinks against the darkness, disoriented. Hands have come up to grip him on each side at the bottom of his ribs and they are squeezing. Not the desperate hands of a young soldier in pain as their blood mingles together on desert sand, these are the delicate, slender, fingers of violin playing and fine tuning scientific instruments. 

John sucks in a breath and the hot sand beneath them dissolves into grassy earth. The stifling, dry air becomes heavy with impending rain and the body below him becomes Sherlock. He collapses slightly, the tension in his muscles uncoiling as he feels Sherlock breathing. He tries to drink in the scent of wet earth and expensive shampoo to fight off the haze of memories.

Another crack of thunder brings John more fully back to the present. He pushes up to his knees. The sky above them has broken open and a cool rain slides over John, soaking him quickly. He shudders as it slips down his neck, and trails along his spine like cold fingers.

“Christ. Sorry.” He looks down at Sherlock pinned beneath him and he can't stop his hands from roaming over Sherlock's chest and shoulders, checking for wounds, assuring himself he is there. Sherlock is staring up at him, eyes wide and shining like twin moons in the darkness. He hasn't let go of John's waist, and John is immeasurably grateful for that firm point that grounds him in the here and now.

“I'm sorry, Sherlock,” John’s voice shakes, almost lost under the shush of raindrops splashing against leaves and earth. His hands fist in his short hair. His insides are still vibrating. His heart is the epicenter of an earthquake that is going to shake him apart. 

Sherlock's hands aren't letting go. Fingers dig in as if John might topple over a cliff edge but for his grasp… and perhaps he will. He is slipping, tumbling, clawing at nothing.

“I - I don't know what came over me. I-” His face burns with the humiliation of losing his grip. He can't bare to look at Sherlock anymore so he tips his face to the sky, eyes pressed closed. He is still gasping air and his heart is thrashing against ribs.

“It doesn't rain in the desert.” Sherlock's voice is neutral, emotionless. It could just as well be a random statement of fact, but John knows Sherlock has followed his thoughts. He sees John. He always has. And now he sees John as he can't help seeing himself in this moment; surrounded by blood and death, kneeling on the sun-scorched earth, trying to fight his way back to the forest where it's raining and Sherlock is lying beneath him in the dark.

John tries to focus on the moment, just feeling the rain splash a hundred tiny, soft kisses on his cheeks, eyelids, lips. He thinks that the hot, salty liquid mixing with the cool drops may be able to pass all the same in the darkness. 

The body between John's thighs shifts and John tips his head back down. Through the droplets clinging to his eyelashes, he sees Sherlock has pulled himself to sitting as much as John's position, straddling his hips, will allow. His curly hair is sodden, plastered to his forehead, rivulets of water are streaming down the planes of his face like they are cliffs of sharp rock, and his eyes are pools of silver moonlight. He looks both softer and fiercely determined. He is searching John's face. There is no judgement in his expression.

“No. No it doesn't,” John says, but the words hurt to force out. His throat clenches on them, because his mind can't catch ahold of the truth. He is unable to pry loose that relentless grip of terror with any rational thought. The darkness could hide bodies and insurgents and bombs. His eyes can't discern anything. “Sherlock, I-” John doesn't know how to finish that sentence. 

_'I’m lost in the dark…’_

He wants to reach out - needs to make this moment more real than the blazing inferno of hell rising up from his memory. He reaches out a hand tentatively towards Sherlock's face and it hovers in the air between them.

_’Find me.’_

Sherlock sees and understands John, as he always has. And he does what he always has done, plunges into the dark. He won't let John get lost in his head and that war he can't win. He leans forward into that hand, letting it cup his face, and then his hand is mirroring John's with a grasp on John's chin.

An electric current crackles through the rain and jolts John's heart into a different rhythm, one synchronised with Sherlock's. He feels the breath he didn't know he was holding gush out of him and a peace washes over him; an odd sense of surrender of his defenses because now he knows he doesn't need them. 

_He is not in the darkness _alone._ _

Then it is all moving quickly, everything tumbling forward, crashing into each other, drinking in warm, soft, lips. John is lifting, up, up, up. Above the darkness and pain and fear. He is clinging with both hands to that glorious ecstasy of life being breathed into his body and seeping down into his bones. The slide and pull of tongue and lips is urgent, untempered and forceful like the roaring storm around them. It rages on and on; a battle to give and take pleasure, to wring every last morsel of passion and life out of each other. It peaks with John’s hands fisted in dark curls at the base of Sherlock's skull, tongue plunging in, sweeping and claiming, until Sherlock goes limp in surrender within his grasp and the storm relents, having blown itself out. It makes a gentle retreat, tapering off to soft, almost chaste, pulls and presses. Then it is gone, fury spent. They are left panting, breathless, hands loosely grasping each other, foreheads resting together as the gentle rain dances over them.

“That doesn't happen in the desert either.” Sherlock states. His voice is soft, rasping in spite of his apparent effort to keep it as even and empty as it had been before. 

“No. No it doesn't.” 

John's laughter starts low and builds until they are both shaking with it. He looks into Sherlock's face that is smiling wide and genuine like it had after that first chase together. 

“Come on, you git. Let's go home.” John climbs off and helps Sherlock to his feet. They look at each other a moment, silent in the darkness. They are soaked to the bone in rain, lips burning with kisses and ribs aching with laughter. Looking at Sherlock, the fear seems universes away to John. They just stare at each other, seeing anew, and it is not awkward or tense. It feels… _promising._

Without discussion, they turn and silently begin walking, shoulder to shoulder, through the dark towards whatever might lie ahead. They walk too close, their solid shoulders bumping and their warm skin of hands brushing frequently, but neither draws away nor mentions it. It is a simple, comforting reminder that though they are most definitely _lost,_ the fear and pain of the past can't win long as they are _together._

**Author's Note:**

> **If you enjoyed this please leave your comments or hit the Kudos button. Your encouragement keeps me writing.**


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